


deserves a quiet night

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Compliant, Inspired by Music, Introspection, M/M, Post Beach, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted on Tumblr <a href="http://tmblr.co/ZIJNMxO55FIL">here</a>, and written for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash">pocky_slash</a>. Somehow, I never got around to listening to much of R.E.M.'s music until I was in university. So this was written for the first time I heard the song "Nightswimming". Live version <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ebK0XEIMDE">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	deserves a quiet night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/gifts).



> Originally posted on Tumblr [here](http://tmblr.co/ZIJNMxO55FIL), and written for [pocky_slash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash). Somehow, I never got around to listening to much of R.E.M.'s music until I was in university. So this was written for the first time I heard the song "Nightswimming". Live version [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ebK0XEIMDE).

A moonless night, a cool shore, the sighing waves, the soft wind.

It's been a long time, Erik thinks, since he's been in a place like this; he has memories of battles fought and won and lost and a confrontation so many long years ago, one in which he'd been missing voices: the voice of his mother, the voices of his fellow mutants.

When he'd deliberately missed Charles's voice, irritatingly idealistic and too earnest and too kind for his own good.

The memories are nearly unbearable, here at this water's edge, but somehow he finds the strength to keep standing, to stay where he is. He even gives in to the impulse to take off his socks and shoes and trousers. Everything else stays on. The water looks cold to him.

"It's been a while," Charles murmurs from behind him, and Erik doesn't look over his shoulder, merely tilts his head, and Charles laughs quietly. Erik is pulling on his wheelchair very, very carefully, just enough to bring Charles closer, levitating a few inches off the shifting sands.

"And you are looking in my head, and you know what I feel," Erik says, simply, and he looks at the flash of Mars and of Jupiter in the ink-dark sky. 

"I do, and really, I thought we agreed to stop dwelling on these things?" Charles sounds fond and exasperated. Erik marvels at how familiar those tones are, even when he's only been allowed to listen to them again, to listen actively, to the point of yearning, for the past year or so.

Reconciliation is not easy, and they cannot now break the habit of blazing arguments, but somehow it is also getting easier and easier to forgive each other, and right now Erik doesn't want to think of pain or of rage when Charles is so determinedly pushing calm at him.

Movement out of the corner of his eye; Charles is taking off his own trousers and socks and shoes with the ease of long practice, and Erik is overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of tenderness that cuts him right to the bone.

As soon as Charles straightens up in his chair Erik leans over and lifts him - a little grunt escapes him; he's still not quite over the idea of Charles being this heavy, being this muscular, and he really ought to just get over it.

So he does, and he walks them both into the water, pleasantly cool to his skin, and as soon as he's deep enough Charles smiles and doesn't kick away, content to let the water take his weight, and the eagerness is a whisper in the back of Erik's head: an eagerness to be together, here and now.

Erik turns around in Charles's arms and Charles makes a small, happy sound, his chest warm against Erik's back. Erik kisses Charles's temple, and holds on for his heart, holds on to Charles's inexplicable strength of heart.

The sweet night, the bodies tangled gently together, the deep water, the low murmuring exchange of thoughts.


End file.
